'Arrival' emerges as a great science fiction movie, and it comes just in time.

Arrival, a new alien-encounter drama starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, could not have arrived at a better moment. As the nation both writhes in despairing agony and luxuriates in triumphant glee (depending on your politics), Arrival, which unsentimentally champions global unity, offers a balm, a glimmer of light in the morass of darkness and ugliness that has hovered over the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. In the film, Adams plays Louise Banks, a linguistics professor who lives in Seattle (or what appears to be Seattle). One day she walks into her classroom and begins a lecture on Portuguese, despite a surprisingly low turnout of students, but is interrupted by frantic news reports of an alien invasion: Twelve “spaceships” have landed in various parts of the world, the nearest one somewhere in Montana. 

But these aren’t the spaceships of War of the Worlds or any schlocky 1950s sci-fi classic. They’re enormous, monolithic, Stonehengey shell-like vessels that silently, stoically hover over the ground. As the military might of various empires reacts with knee-jerk panic and paranoia, Louise becomes a pawn in the U.S. government’s attempt to communicate with our visitors. (Forest Whitaker shows up as a grim but sympathetic colonel, trying to appease his superiors but also trying to listen to Louise’s theories about how to communicate with these alien beings.)

But these tall, grey aliens, which stand on four rail-thin legs and have long, tendril-like tentacles on their heads, use a language no one understands, and Louise, who teams up with a scientist named Ian (played by Jeremy Renner), must slowly figure out a few words and teach them some of her own. Meanwhile, various other world powers scramble to do the same, and become increasingly afraid when they do begin to understand the language of these other-worldly creatures.

Arrival opens with a  gloomy shot of Louise’s living room, perhaps at dusk, because we see two wine glasses and a half-empty bottle on a little table in the corner. Her house overlooks what appears to be the Puget Sound, and the shot is remarkably silent, until the music—an elegy of sustained strings—ushers in feelings of sadness we do not yet understand. 

The movie ends in that room too, yet now the image swells with meaning because of what’s happened in between. And everything that happens in Arrival feels right, nearly flawless, from the images of the humans making contact, to the global tension that builds as widespread fear takes hold. Arrival emerges as a great science fiction movie: a big, smart, mass appeal kind of film that succeeds marvelously as a genre piece, as a meditation on life and death and time and the nature of language, and as a movie that plays with time in surprising ways. 

The director, Denis Villeneuve (Sicario) and the scenarist, Eric Heisserer, don’t use time manipulation as a gimmick. Rather, they question the nature of time and how we understand it, without getting bogged down in overcomplicated language. Arrival is more poetry than theory. The movie builds toward something powerful, inevitable, and shattering: that’s the kind of grand emotion, which comes from the careful accumulation of smaller, subtler emotions, that we should expect from and delight in particularly from major films. 

Perhaps Arrival will be too slow-moving and thoughtful for some who might be expecting a more action-packed movie. But Arrival isn’t Independence Day. This is not a movie about malicious creatures from outer space: it’s a movie about the malicious pervasiveness of bad information, and how assumptions and breakdowns in communication not only paralyze us, but pit us against one another, often with grave consequences. This is The Day the Earth Stood Still for the 21st century, but it’s also Solaris (1972), Tarkovsky’s pensive, somnambulant masterpiece about space and time and death. 

Like the scientist Kris in Solaris, who has lost his wife but keeps seeing her on the spacecraft, Louise is haunted by tragedy too: the death of her daughter. We see mother and daughter in flashback, shards of a happier life that we know is doomed: them playing in the backyard, wading in a pond, the little girl doing her homework, the little girl becoming a teenager and wondering about why her parents split, the teenager receiving a shattering diagnosis, and then, the agony of the hospital bed, and Louise bending over her daughter’s lifeless body in despair. 

Amy Adams immediately draws us in as someone who’s suffered the kind of loss you don’t really get over. And unlike the Sandra Bullock-vehicle Gravity, which was a sumptuous but indulgently sappy entertainment, Arrival doesn’t withhold this dead-child information to be used against us later. Louise’s loss is known to us virtually from the start, and while it certainly shapes her character, it is not a plot device on which the emotional beats of the movie hang. Nevertheless, as Louise throws herself into her daunting linguistic project, the recollections of her child keep breaking through, sometimes in dreams that are increasingly affected by her interactions with the aliens, whom Ian has nicknamed Abbot and Costello. 

Some science fiction movies grasp for greatness and, against all odds, become masterpieces (like 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is simultaneously pretentious and brilliant). Others fail, like Interstellar, which is an expertly made but overblown film, one that tries very, very hard. When we can feel the effort, and when the results are so earnest yet incomprehensible, our reaction (or mine at least) is to pull away. Even at its most ponderous moments, a movie like Close Encounters of the Third Kind reaches into us and pulls us out of ourselves. 

That’s the work that great science fiction can do, and Arrival indeed makes that kind of personal contact with its viewers. We are breathlessly pulled into the story; we delight in the ways this movie surprises us; we feel the emotions as palpably as if the stories were our own. And in the darkened theater, this story belongs to us.

Southpaw

It’s hard to imagine that Jake Gyllenhaal could ever play a boxer, although, when you see him standing in the ring in those shiny black shorts and a trickle of blood hanging out of a his mouth, dripping onto his taut stomach, it’s not so difficult to believe. If you’re going to the movies this weekend, you could probably do a lot worse than Southpaw, a family drama about a light-heavyweight champion named Billy Hope whose life and career are reduced to rubble after a series of escalating financial problems and personal tragedies. (Warning: Spoilers ahead in the rest of this paragraph; skip to the next one to avoid.) His wife, Maureen, played by the wonderful, lovely, strong Rachel McAdams (who I believe makes any movie better) is shot and killed at a charity event after a fight between Billy and another fighter turns violent. It’s pretty obvious from the start that Maureen is the glue that holds Billy Hope together. Without her, Billy is virtually alone. He self-destructs, losing his house, his support, and his daughter, who’s taken into the hands of child services.

Southpaw is in a lot of ways a run-of-the-mill boxing drama, bolstered by the performances of its stars. I’m a big fan of Jake Gyllenhaal, who gave one of last year’s most memorable performances in the creepy thriller Nightcrawler. Here, Gyllenhaal transforms himself into a prizefighter, defying the naysayer within all of us that might think of him still as the adorably scrawny, thoughtful teenager in Donnie Darko, or the boy scout cartoonist Robert Graysmith in Zodiac. What’s frustrating—for me at least—is that so many actors seem intent on proving themselves in this genre, as though, because of Robert De Niro’s performance in Raging Bull, the wrestling genre is a gauntlet through which all serious male performers must pass.

I have no idea if Gyllenhaal is trying to cement his reputation as a serious actor with a movie like Southpaw. More likely he’s a serious actor who wants to challenge himself. And Southpaw gives him plenty of opportunities to hit all the emotional beats that a serious actor would kill for. He gets to be on top, a superstar in the boxing world; he gets to (SPOILER) have Rachel McAdams die in his arms; he gets to fall, like a mighty emperor suddenly conquered, reduced to rubble and abandoned by everyone who worshiped him only moments prior. He gets to rise up and conquer his demons. He gets redemption. In short, Southpaw is ready-made for those who want all of the drama of a boxing movie. There’s just not much novelty in it, and for someone who hates watching boxing of any kind, it was a bit of a grind. I did feel increasingly more invested as the move wore on, admittedly.

But as a drama, Southpaw is often sloppy. It relies on the easy tears of lost loves and dramatic disappointments, and the equally simple-minded “I’m going to win this one for my daughter” and “family is everything” messages that Hollywood loves to drape around its movies, like the tin-foil candy wrappers that are engraved with syruppy feel-good adages, like "love is what really matters."  

What is perhaps most eye-opening—and tragic—is the truth that Southpaw exposes: These boxers are alone. These are guys who have likely not had the advantage of an education. They have no other career options to fall back on, and they have no real support system in place. Billy’s wife Maureen was the exception. Most of these men are being exploited by their coterie of ass-kissing paid trainers and legal assistants and security staff. Once the fame and the money go, they “disappear like cock roaches,” as Maureen so aptly puts it in the film. I think this is the one thing which makes Southpaw particularly relevant and even important as a contribution to movies. And maybe this truth has been evident all along and I just haven’t noticed it.

Forrest Whitaker co-stars as the wise trainer who takes in the broken and defeated Billy in the second half of the movie and then helps him rise again. Oona Laurence gives a heartfelt and strong performance as Billy’s daughter, Leila. With Naomie Harris, Victor Ortiz, 50 Cent, Miguel Gomez, and Beau Knapp. Directed by Antoine Fuqua. 

Dope

Sometimes a movie arrives just when it’s needed. Dope is the antidote to nearly any movie you’re likely to see this summer. It’s a sharp, imaginative teen comedy about a young man named Malcolm (Shameik Moore), who’s a black geek and the lead singer in a punk band which comprises himself and his two best friends, Jib (Tony Revolori) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons). Malcolm lives in Inglewood, California, where his taste and ambitions are constantly at odds with the cultural stream of his environment. Nobody takes him seriously because he doesn’t dress like most of the kids at his school, or act like them, or like the same things as them. Malcolm sports a flat top, is obsessed with 90s hip hop, and wants to go to Harvard, a school that is, according to Malcolm’s teachers, utterly out of his grasp, despite his excellent grades. The movie focuses on the unexpected means by which Malcolm and his friends become drug dealers, and the way they use their outsider personas as protection from suspicion.

Writer-director Rick Famiyuwa has an exuberant love of cinematic storytelling. He’s created a lush mix of characters in Dope, all of them well-drawn, and fitted the movie around them. Nothing feels formulaic in Dope, and Famiyuwa delights in the many surprises that he throws our way. And yet, none of those surprises feels forced or poorly conceived. But they aren’t necessarily realistic, either. People who are sticklers for the tyranny of realism will be challenged by the ridiculous—and wonderful—excesses of Dope.

The film has a lot to say about how we view people of color, how we have one version of a black teenager living in the hood. Even the people appointed as his advocates, like his college advisor, are essentially there to keep him down, to lower his expectations about life. And Famiyuwa, with keen, masterful skill, pulls the rug out from any assumptions we might make about Malcolm. When he discovers a gun and a bag of drugs in his backpack (on school premises, during a routine drug search), Malcolm panics, but soon realizes that his reputation as a black “nerd” protects him from any suspicion of guilt. Malcolm is the good kid. He doesn’t do drugs or go to parties or join gangs or break the law. He dreams big—isn’t cute that he wants to go to Harvard?

But what of the ending, when Malcolm writes an admittedly compelling admissions essay? Is Malcolm using his race as a buzz word to guilt the admissions committee into accepting him? Or is he simply pointing out their own inherent racism? Malcolm’s grades are clearly exceptional, and his entrepreneurial skills, if unorthodox, are impressive. He’s been branded by a white person’s idea of “The Hood” and the assumption that anyone who comes from “The Hood” must be a drug-addled thug. Ultimately, Dope is movie about expectations, and how those expectations expose our shallow perceptions of people. They also allow people to act differently without being noticed, and this can become a powerful enabler. Sometimes, the kids really are the smartest ones in the room, and Dope quickly establishes itself as one of the smartest (and most satisfying) teen comedies in recent memory.

With Kimberly Elise, Chanel Iman, Tyga, Blake Anderson, A$AP Rocky, Keith Stanfield, Rick Fox, Amin Joseph, and Forest Whitaker.

The Butler

Surely we all know that the words "inspired by a true story" are themselves a kind of fiction when it comes to the movies. And yet many of us take things in movies as though they were courtroom documents, or "as trustworthy as the world almanac," to quote Bette Davis's character in All About Eve. Movies, of course, are master manipulators. That's one of their basic charms, and I generally don't hold their fudging against them in the slightest. But Hollywood's penchant for revising history does mean that viewers have to be able to separate fact from fiction, and it's rather bewildering that some people continue to accept movies as reliable sources. When it comes to details, they usually aren't. They're product designed to elicit emotions from our hearts and minds and money from our wallets. But in terms of getting the mood of a period and having it register in our minds, movies can be quite powerful and accurate. It is in this way that I think The Butler generally succeeds, especially where it lacks in getting certain details right. (This is to say that the screenwriters of The Butler deliberately altered things for their own dramatic purposes; not that they were bad historians.)

The Butler is hugely entertaining for what it is: a big movie with big emotions that tells a sweeping narrative of the last fifty years of American public life, looking specifically at the Civil Rights movement and a humble butler who serves seven U.S. presidents. His name in the movie is Cecil Gaines (the real man was named Eugene Allen), and he's played by Forest Whitaker. Whitaker plays Cecil with grace and patience. Enough grace and patience that his son sort of rebels, joining with the ranks of Martin Luther King and then later the Black Panthers because he feels that immediate action--not quiet reserve--is needed to facilitate cultural change.

Just a few mythbusters and then I'll move away from my "based on a true story" rant. Eugene Allen had one son, not two, and his son was neither a civil rights activist like the elder son in the movie nor a Vietnam vet like the younger one. Allen also started working at the Whitehouse earlier than the movie claims (but not as a butler, and not as head butler until 1981, five years before his retirement in 1986, which is one of the few correct claims the movie makes.) One of the most calculating changes that the filmmakers make comes in the son, Louis, who happens to be present during virtually every significant moment in the Civil Rights movement, including the Freedom Riders bus ride through Alabama (the one where they're attacked by a seething mob of KKK and non-KKK racist nutjobs) and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Then he even becomes a Black Panther (briefly). It seemed too Forrest Gump-ish to me. (Forrest, you remember, seemed to witness an incredulous number of cultural and historical moments.)

The film very obviously tries to juxtapose Cecil Gaines--who does what is expected of him very well, and considers this a subtle contribution to the march for equality--and his son Louis--who's fed up with being subservient to snooty white racists and wants change. It allows the movie to have some kick to it, even if this kind of plotting feels too convenient. Moreover, the differences between the two men really put Forest Whitaker in the background of his own movie. His is not the face I see as I think about The Butler. I see Louis, I see the cartoonish representations of the U.S. Presidents (from Eisenhower to Reagan, but skipping Ford and Carter), and I see Oprah.  (There is, however, real passion and command inside of Forest Whitaker, and he's able to get some of that out in the second half of the movie.) Given the film's colorful array of characters, it's really an unfair disadvantage.

Those presidents are something else. Robin Williams plays Eisenhower; James Marsden, JFK; Liev Schreiber, LBJ, John Cusack, Nixon; and Alan Rickman, Reagan. (Jane Fonda also makes a cameo appearance as Nancy Reagan.) They're quite an impressive group of actors, and even if their impressions don't always work, they're fascinatingly gauche and/or dead-on. Marsden is surprisingly good as JFK; Rickman really nails Reagan; and Cusack is creepily off-kilter yet somehow right as Nixon. (There's also the added pleasure of seeing LBJ scream at his subjects while on the toilet, with the bathroom door wide open.)

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the performance of Oprah Winfrey as Gloria Gaines, Cecil's devoted wife. Oprah's performance is wonderful, and makes you wish she did more movies. Gloria is a boozing but still loving wife, and Oprah's performance brings a lot of humor to the movie that it desperately needs. The Butler isn't a downer (although it's infuriating at times to see how awful black people were treated at this time, and may still be treated today in certain circles), but it is more than a bit self-important. Oprah, who often comes off as self-important when she's giving away free cars to every person in her audience, here appears grounded and real in a way that is vital to the success of this movie. She's also a great balance to the measured, polite character of Cecil. Gloria doesn't care about pleasing people. Yet she's not brash or obnoxious, and her support of her husband is quite touching at times.

Viewers are likely to walk away from The Butler with a sugar-coated lie in their heads. Now that we've got a black president, it's all good. Racism against black people in America is over. (The movie doesn't do anything to counter this.) And what's more, The Butler has spent two hours showing us the general failings of U.S. presidents, only to rejoice in a kind of enchanted, unrealistic way at the election of a black one. President Obama's election was a big deal, of course, in a symbolic way, but the reality of being a president is a lot more complicated and unflattering for anyone who's tasked with the job. (And for the record, it's always been this way. Presidents rarely get something done quickly, for better or worse.) The Butler isn't interested in showing us that. I'm content with the movie as it is, but I worry that some of its sloppiness will eventually be used in classrooms as pure fact.

Ghost Dog

Forest Whitaker plays a hitman who's known affectionately and yet with a certain amount of trepidation as Ghost Dog. He has a "gift" for effecting successful and stealth contract killings. However, when his latest job doesn't turn out exactly the way his clients wanted, Ghost Dog becomes a target of a bunch of aging mafiosos. They're relics of the golden age of mobster movies, men who were probably pretty tough in 1972, but who are now slow and fat and wrinkled and have raspy voices and dulled reflexes. Ghost Dog lithely eludes their labored attempts to confront and kill him.

Whitaker turns his character into some kind of a deadly teddy bear. He's into samarai literature and philosophy, and reading in general, and his best friend (played by Isaach de Bankole) is a Haitian immigrant who only speaks French and drives an ice cream truck. When Ghost Dog--whose real name is withheld from us--meets a bright young girl named Pearline in the park, the two strike up an unlikely friendship that, while brief, proves to illuminate a great deal to us about Ghost Dog's character. He and she seem to exist in completely other worlds from their Jersey City surroundings.

Ghost Dog is devoted to the code of the Samarai, and everyone around him is oblivious to the idea of living by any code whatsoever, except for the mafiosos, who are on borrowed time in their chosen profession. You start to laugh at the ridiculousness of overaged men still trying to be badasses. It's meant to be comical, and when the light bulb suddenly clicks (there are no younger dudes with guns in this group--it's the world's first geriatric mafia), you realize that this movie is going to be fun. It's deliberately slow-paced, but the camera work by Robby Muller is arresting: the atmosphere of Ghost Dog leaves one feeling on edge, but there's a fluid lull to the imagery that keeps you glued to the screen. There's something almost unspeakable about the feel of this movie. It's akin to the film's wryly funny and yet touchingly reverent view of its main character, who's some kind of criminal religious figure with almost mystical sensibilities.

The action is exciting, in part because the director, Jim Jarmusch, doesn't overload the movie with shootouts. And he's very subtle about them. Those scenes creep up on you when you don't expect them, and while there are touches of brutality, nothing is handled humorlessly: you're always conscious of the fact that this movie doesn't take itself too seriously. It's a mystical, breezy crime thriller: something of an anomaly, perhaps, but quite a good piece of entertainment, sustained by Whitaker's fine performance.

With John Tormey, Cliff Gorman, Tricia Vessey, Henry Silva, Victor Argo, Vinny Vella, Joseph Rigano, and Camille Winbush. Music by RZA. 1999.